mstrust #2: Just A Hot Mess

I'm Jennifer in Phoenix, where we've been hitting 100 degrees pretty regularly already. I hit my 15th Thingaversary in March. If you drop in on me here you'll see that I read all kinds of stuff, but I do have some genres that I always return to, like travel, mysteries and horror. And cookbooks. I don't have a lot of categories but I know I'll fill them. A sense of accomplishment is important.

I Spend a lot of time researching and writing my Substack, Autumn Lives Here, where you'll find scary movies, spooky book reviews, Autumn recipes, true crime and odd articles. Come look around: https://substack.com/inbox/post/90410208

I host a few Kits every year:
September: Haunted Houses
MysteryKit- May: True Unsolved Mysteries

Maybe I should mention here that I truly am a slowwww reader. You won't gasp at how quickly I get through reviews, because my reading is between writing, gardening, trips to Vegas and episodes of Supernatural. But I do it everyday.
I hope you'll stop in often.

Prove It!
(Non-Fiction)

1. You Are Not So Smart- 3.5
2. Eat, Memory- 4
3. Drive-Thru Dreams- 3
4. Death in the Air- 3.5
5. The Bookshop Book- 4.5
6. The Bookshop That Floated Away-3
7. The Walking Dead Psychology- 4
8. Blood & Ivy- 4
9. Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases- 5

Trust Me, I'm Scarier Than You Expect
(Horror)

1. Such Sharp Teeth- 4
2. The Last House on Needless Street- 4.5
3. Hell House- 3
4. The Monster of Elendhaven- 4
5. How To Sell A Haunted House- 4
6. Cell- 3.5
7. 30 Days of Night Vol. 2- 3.5
8. Mothered- 4.5
9. The Broken Girls- 4.5
10. Fifth-Grade Zombies- 3.5
11. The Visitors- 5
12. The Pram and Census- 4
13. The Slither Sisters- 4

Harry Taught Me A Code
(Mystery & Crime)

1. Monk and the Two Assistants- 4
2. The Black Dahlia by Rick Geary- 4
3. The Sun Down Motel- 5
4. The High Window- 4
5. The Deep Blue Good-By-4
6. Darkly Dreaming Dexter- 4

Let's Try It!
(New To Me)

1. Charles Dowding's Veg Journal-3
2. The Sea Beast Takes A Lover- 3.5
3. The Silence- 3
4. Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One- 5
5. What Am I Doing Here- 4
6. American Vampire Vol. 1- 3.5

I Hear Great Things About You
(Most Anticipated)

1. Paul Is Undead- 3.5
2. The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch- 3.5
3. Cackle- 4
4. The Library Book- 4.5
5. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper- 4.5
6. My Heart Is A Chainsaw- 3.5

You Again?
(Favorites)

1. Tales From the Haunted Mansion Volume II- 4
2. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows- 4
3. Tales From the Haunted Mansion IV- 4.2
4. Previous Convictions- 4
5. Mr. Monk Is Miserable-4
6. Vinyl Cafe Turns the Page- 4
7. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops- 4
8. Bedside Manor- 4.5

Don't Pretend You Don't Know Me
(ROOTS)

1. Mary Jane- 3
2. The Red Green Book- 3.5
3. Schooled-3
4. Embassy of the Dead- 4

Savings & Loan
(Gifts & Library)

1. The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook- 4
2. Epic Tomatoes- 4.5
3. Shelf Respect- 4
4. The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency- 3
5. The Complete Kitchen Garden- 3
6. The Bob's Burgers Burger Book- 3.5
7. The Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book- 3.5

How's this for a welcome?

Next one's yours.

I'm still following along... your last book in the other thread had me taking a BB (so I thought!), but it was already on the tbr!

Happy new thread! And a BB already. With all those terrific authors The Library Book is on the way to me.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! I love all the pictures, especially the Goreys.

>12 LibraryCin: Just saved yourself some time then! But thanks for getting to my new thread first, and help yourself to some hot chili pepper candy:

What can it hurt?

>13 VivienneR: Thanks!
But it looks like you've got a different The Library Book, which still sounds good. I read the one by Susan Orlean: The Library Book.

>14 MissWatson: Thanks, glad you're here!

>15 christina_reads: Thank you! I love Gorey too, so I kept the same category toppers. They're perfect.

Happy New Thread! May your air conditioner never fail and may the summer heat be interrupted by a few cool mornings.

Thank you, those are some blessings I can really use!

I've DNF America the Edible. I like Richman as a tv personality, but the writing is so crappy that I gave up in the third chapter.

>16 mstrust: I'm all over the candy! Thank you! :-)

Happy new thread, Jennifer.

>20 LibraryCin: You're welcome! I've developed a taste for sweet and hot the last few years.

>21 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy!

I have officially entered my hot weather reading phase. I've gathered the books from my shelves that deal with summer or hot settings, travel books, beachy locales. I'll still be reading the murder and spooky books, but I'll get through as many of my hot reads as possible over the next few months.

Thought I had sent a Happy New Thread but must have forgot to hit post. I like your idea for hot weather reading. We have friends who live south of you - outside Tucson in Vail in the winter and I 'm sure they're glad to be back here where it's cooler for the summer. (we actually had a frost warning last week and I had to move all my flowers into the garage.)

I gather a big stack of hot weather reads at this time each year as I don't want to read about hot locations in the Winter. Just seems like the time.
We've often taken our vacations during summer, just to have a break, because anywhere is cooler than Phoenix. I keep up with some gardeners in different parts of the country and was surprised that there have still been frosts back East. We've been right around 100 for maybe two weeks, and I have to shade my plants and water twice a day.

>16 mstrust: In that case you used the wrong touchstone in >6 mstrust: but no worries, I'm a big fan of Alan Bennett whose name in the description sent me off to find the book. I'm happy about that.

It was the wrong touchstone, I was just copying and pasting as fast as possible. I didn't even know there was another book with the same name.
Glad you found a new Bennett story, he's fun, and the "other" library book looks good.

>22 mstrust: some how I missed your first thread, glad this just popped up! Love your Gorey cartoons and your selections.

this spring has been so weird here. I think we got a freeze in Feb which killed off our fall garden to be followed by a few days of 80s, then back to cold, and rainy, then hot, then windy (weve been calling this month "maysoon" since our monsoons dont start till July.) then now its back up to the 90s which killed off our spring garden. At least the morninngs have been lovely tho I know that will end soon.

what travel boooks are you looking at?

I have only read three of the books that you have listed and I gave them similar ratings to you.

Hell House 2.5/5
The Monster of Elendhaven 4/5
The Five 5/5

>27 cindydavid4: Glad you found me!
We've had high temps that dip by twenty degrees a few days later. Right now we're steady in just a degree or two under 100. We already had a "light" monsoon about two weeks ago, so well before the official season. Where do you live?
Travel books on my stack include A.A. Gill, Tim Moore, and one called The Lunatic Express.

>28 Zozette: Very close ratings, so I guess you can trust me ;-D

In Chandler! Tends to be a tad cooler here, not much tho.

In Chandler! Tends to be a tad cooler here, not much tho.

Ive read A.A. Gill and liked him at first. then I realized he was a misogonist and didn't like people in general. But he was funny, and his travel writing is good Lemme know what you think. Havent read Tim Moore but the titles he has look really interesting.

>30 cindydavid4: >31 cindydavid4: Oh, another local! Yes, we're in the West Valley so we get more heat, less rain. On the other hand, we tend to have less damage during the monsoons and other storms.
I like Gill precisely because he was a curmudgeon, not a fan of people overall, so he speaks my language, ha! He could be incredibly vulgar, not my favorite part of him, but also bitingly funny. My first and still favorite from him was The Angry Island. It's been many years since I've read Tim Moore, so I hope he's still amusing.

A new Autumn Lives Here is up. The most haunted hotel in Boston, and differences between ravens and crows. It's creepy fun!
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

32. The High Window by Raymond Chandler.

Marlowe takes the case of a rare gold coin that has been stolen from the home of a very wealthy and horrible old widow. She suspects her night club singer daughter-in-law, who recently left her spoiled son, so Marlowe sets off. Within two days he's stumbled across three dead men and finds that the widow has gotten him involved with very dangerous people.
A solid Marlowe noir with lots of entertaining wise-cracks and slang. First published in 1942. 4 stars

The new Autumn Lives Here is up. Cold crime investigator Paul Holes, a ghoulish tiki cocktail, and big movie news. This week is free to everyone.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

33. The Silence by Don DeLillo

Jim and Tessa are flying home from Paris when their plane crashes. They survive, Jim with a head wound, but are left in a vague, indifferent state. The power grid in NYC goes down that same day, so the couple, unable to make it home, goes to the Super Bowl gathering of a friend. There they meet a science teacher who can't stop talking about all the potentially awful reasons that the power is out, and all of them mean doom.
Published in 2020, clearly during the pandemic and at the height of fear, though I wouldn't call it a story just about fear. It's a bit of a cheat to double space what amounts to a short story and call it a novel. 3 stars

Books brought home from Vegas:
The Lobster Coast
Coyote Blue
Pitcairn's Island
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
The Good, The Bad and the Very Slimy

34. Death in the Air by Kate Winkler Dawson.
Two deadly stories that played out in London in 1952. Over the course of several days, the city was covered in a thick layer of smoky fog, condensed into a new word, "smog". The smog was so thick that people could hardly see in front of them, and spending any amount of time in the smog resulted in death for an estimated 12,000 people.
At the same time, a resident of Notting Hill, at the time a slum area of London, was luring women into the flat he shared with his wife. John Reginald Christie was a serial killer whose home, 10 Rillington, has gone down in infamy as the site where so many women, plus an infant and his own wife of 30 years, met their end at the hands of a fussy loser.
Winkler Dawson is always an amazing researcher, unearthing even the tiniest detail, so if you've read about either story before, you're likely to find a lot you hadn't come across before. She even interviewed a 102 year-old who was a patrolman during these events. When it comes to all the Parliament discourse over the smog and the fighting about it's cause and what to do about it, the story drags, but this was the author's first book. I'm a fan of her various podcasts and she can tell a story. 3.5

The latest Autumn Lives Here has the 1929 trial of Alexander Pantages, a unique dating app and a few things that are sucking up my time.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

If you're one of my extra creepy subscribers at Autumn Lives Here, pop over to your e-mails. The extra post for June is there. I hope you like it!

35. Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One by Jack Townsend.

Jack works at a 24 hour gas station out on the edge of an unnamed town, with much of the place surrounded by thick forest. He works incredibly long hours because they have trouble keeping their employees and he can't sleep anyway, probably due to the gas station being a hot spot for incredibly weird things, like doors suddenly appearing, plants along the perimeter that look and behave exactly like human hands, and a nearby murder cult that shop there. That's in addition to the regular shoplifting and vandalism.
Jack is hard to shock, but as things get stranger and more dangerous with each shift at the gas station, he starts a blog to get the occurrences out there in case anybody has answers, because he's worried.

This story may be the most crazy and fun I've come across. I know that the cover looks like a slasher horror, and it does have some horror elements, though I think it would best be described at Night Vale meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Shaun of the Dead. I'm happy to find that it's a series. 5 stars

The new, free volume of Autumn Lives Here is up! This week, a deep dive into the campy horror, The Monster Club, starring Vincent Price. Also, eels are evil and I have a list of the worst ones. And a review of Grady Hendrix's latest. Creepy fun!
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

We're expected to hit 103 today, and in a few days, 109. It actually hasn't been that bad so far. Usually we'd be roasting in June.

On the 26 of this month is the anniversary of the top temperature ever recorded in Phx,126 degrees. that day my dh was up on roofs working on ACs, I was busy making last minute errands before our wedding on July 8 (it was only 101 that day, we lucked out) so yes this has been a remarkably nice June, in fact the weather since February has really been nice. Hoping this continues;

I'm grateful for the cooler June (so far). But because there's a twist to everything nice in Phoenix, we have the grasshopper infestation, ha! We walked up to a store the other day and the parking lot was covered in smashed bugs. Gross.

>45 mstrust: yes weve noticed that too. Keeps our cats amused and too busy to mess with bird nests. So long as they done bring one in the house

Always an upside, even to Armageddon-like events!

yup. My sis and I are keeping track of the different plagues of Egypt that have visited us in the last few year. thats next on the list

I still wonder how a city could have been founded in the most intensely hot spot in the whole state, and often the whole country. But at least we don't have tornadoes :-D

https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/
It's Autumn Lives Here's 1st birthday!

36. Cell by Stephen King.

Clay is away from his Maine home, in Boston for the day, when people begin attacking strangers. He notices that the attackers go from normal to berserk after using their cell phones, like a switch is flipped. Clay doesn't have a cell on him, and neither does Tom, a man he joins up with, and this is what saves them. They rescue Alice, and the three head north, hoping to reach Clay's family and see if they're alive or have turned into "phone-crazies". The group watch as the days and weeks change the crazies, they begin organizing under the direction of one man who can be anywhere the survivors are and send telepathic messages.

This isn't one of my favorites from King, in fact, the first dozen pages or so were a little ham-fisted, lacking the je ne sais quoi of most of his work. The annoying, constantly crying female character that is in other King novels is here in Alice, who reminded me a lot of Frannie from The Stand, and The Raggedy Man had a little of Randall Flagg about him. But the allegory of cell phones turning humans into mindless zombies is clear. 3.5

37. The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell.

Campbell goes continent by continent in discussing wonderful bookshops and their owners. As she's based in the U.K., this section is the largest and by far the most in-depth, and that's okay. The reader will end up with a list of books to read and places to look for, at least I did.
For someone who likes books on books as much as I do, I should slap my hand for waiting so long to finally read this one. It's very much a comfort read. 4.5 stars

oh oh.. I better get it before I slap my own hand :)

Happy new thread

>53 cindydavid4: Ha, I started using that phrase years ago after seeing Jack Donaghy slapping his own hand while saying, "Uh-uh, uh-uh."

>54 lowelibrary: Thanks, glad you're here!

A new Autumn Lives Here is up, and I've got sharks and a double homicide!
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

38. 30 Days of Night Vol. 2: Blood-Stained Looking Glass by Steve Niles

Eben sacrificed himself to save the remaining residents of Barrow, Alaska after the town was decimated by vampires. He was a hero then, but since turning into a vampire himself, he's determined to be the leader who kills every last living person in the snowbound town.
3.5 stars

39. Previous Convictions by A.A. Gill

A collection of essays and travel pieces by the late travel and food critic, who was one of the wittiest, funniest, most vulgar and observant writers. His topics here range from an assignment in Haiti, where he witnesses a murder and gets caught in the middle of a riot. In Brazil, he observes the lifestyle of both the rich and poor and gets pretty entranced with "bottoms". In New York, he commits to trying all the trendy gyms and their exercise programs. One of the funniest pieces is about golf, with Gill in a fury, listings everything he hates about the idea of golf and golfers, before becoming a golfer himself, and the most heartfelt essay is about his father's Alzheimer's. There's also a piece about hunting that is graphic at times, but also explains his stance.
Even if you think you aren't interested in the subject he's writing about, Gill could hold the reader's attention because he had such an unpredictable, original voice. 4 stars

>58 mstrust: I liked him through three books, then the next I read just put me off. I saw too much negative

He was often critical, which is probably why he was a critic. Yet, I've seen footage of him speaking and joking with people and he seemed happy. There are times when I don't agree with him, but he was so interesting and I love his sharp wit.

i agree with those last two. Might try him again

Oh this other eden by brit comedian is wonderful. A send up to journalistic greed and power (think Wm Randolph Hearst hollywood stardom and environmentalism. The end could have been more focused but his humor is just perfect here

Oh yeah, I know Ben Elton, he was a writer for The Young Ones. Very funny guy.

A new Autumn Lives Here is checking out the creepy things to do in Vegas.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/p/autumn-lives-here-dc7

40. The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw.

The true account by Book Barge owner Henshaw of giving herself six months of taking her narrowboat, converted into a bookshop, around England to try and turn a profit.
Mired in debt from low sales, a long term relationship recently ended, and feeling like she has made wrong decisions about her life, she has given herself six months more with her bookshop boat to decide if this is the right path. She tells the reader about the good and bad customers, receiving lots of kindness from social media, and the hardships of living on a narrowboat. Her boat was burgled while moored, by the men in the very next boat, and people scream at her for taking too long at the locks. There's an inordinate amount of time spent talking about locks, and waiting at locks and working the locks. I didn't care for the long pieces of her fiction stuck in, and sometimes her sentence structures had me rereading to understand, especially as she sometimes dips into fantasy willy-nilly.
I thought I'd like this more, that it would be more fun, but it's interesting. 3 stars

My first day with a new computer! Desperately needed, and tons more storage.

41. The Deep Blue Good-By by John D. MacDonald

Travis McGee enjoys his lazy life in Lauderdale, where he lives on a nice yacht that he won in a card game and takes occasional work as an undercover investigator. He has many female friends, including one who begs McGee to help a dancer whose brutal boyfriend has run off with something valuable that belonged to her father, but she has no idea what that item is. McGee doesn't intend on getting into this situation until he hears the whole story, and the woman who needs help leads him to another victim of the same man, then on to more intended victims. 4 stars

This week's Autumn Lives Here features alien movies, creepy New England travel, and an infamous New England dark day:
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

>66 mstrust: I am big fan of John D. MacDonald although I haven't yet read one of his Travis McGee books - must get going on that!

I'm not positive, but I think the one I read was the first of the series, and somehow I've collected four or five more already.

July's Extra for my Glorious Goriest subscribers is up at Autumn Lives Here, and it's a big list of what to hoard in the upcoming season.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

The Woman in the Dark arrived.

This is a free week at Autumn Lives Here! I've got the British legend of Bloody Bones and Rawhead, how to turn Summer into Autumn, and the ALH advice column is back.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

24. Mr. Monk Is Miserable by Lee Goldberg

After tracking down Monk's therapist in Germany, Natalie convinces Monk to take a vacation in Paris, where she honeymooned with her late husband. But she's Monk assistant now, so a murder occurs on the plane ride and Natalie hopes that's a fluke. Then, while touring the catacombs, Monk spots a fresher skull, uncovering a recent murder, which turns out to have a link to another murder at dinner. The two are joined by Stottlemeyer and Randy as one victim was a San Francisco con man, so Natalie has to give up on her vacation. And the group discover that Randy's homemade cd has made it to France.
Another fun, quirky novel from Goldberg. 4

This week at Autumn Lives Here, I've got teens in big trouble and a look at what qualifies as horror.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford arrived.

43. My Heart Is A Chainsaw by Stephen Graham-Jones.

Seventeen year-old Jade is obsessed with slasher movies to the point that in any given situation, she's thinking about how a movie character behaved. She often sees herself as a character in one of these movies, usually as the killer.
Living in a very small town in Idaho with her lousy father and a mother who moved out but remained close enough for Jade to wonder why she isn't involved in her daughter's life, Jade is the outcast in town, the weirdo everyone stays away from. Then a group of super wealthy people arrive and buy up the land the abandoned summer camp sits on, which is surrounded by the cursed lake. The lower working class townspeople hate the newcomers, who respond with good jobs and opportunities for the kids, but their arrival also brings a string of deaths, and people wonder if Jade finally making good on her wish that a slasher would come to the town where she was never accepted?
This is a 400 page deep dive into 80s slasher flicks, most of it taking place in Jade's head as she constantly reminds herself of plots and how characters responded. It's about 100 pages too long. Being in the head of someone as messed up as Jade can get tedious as she flits between reality and fantasy. Not to say this isn't well-written, it is, but all her anger, resentment and movie info became a blur about page 200, though the action picks up around 300 pages in.
3.5

The new Autumn Lives Here is up! Maple pudding, a visit to the real Halloweentown, and a shipwreck to end all shipwrecks!
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

44. What Am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatwin.

My first read of Chatwin's writing, and this book turns out to have been his last. The essays are grouped under titles, such as "Friends", which includes Diana Vreeland. "Encounters" includes a wild memoir of being in Africa with Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski as they filmed a movie. He also writes of nomads, French fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet in Paris, and meeting a "wolf-boy" in India in 1978.
Reading Chatwin's essays is like getting an education about the world of the last 35 years of the 20th Century. He sought out the rare and unusual, often focusing on one person, or a small group, to tell the story of how they live. I'll look for more from him. 4 stars

one of my fav travel writers, passed way to early

Yes, a short life for such talent!

>78 mstrust: I found his On The Black Hill and The Songlines at an op shop a few weeks ago. I will have to get to them soon.

On Black Hill is very good IMHO

A new Autumn Lives Here is up, and I've got The Shining Twins and Hell Cake, which I'm taking to the state fair competition. Get my original recipe now.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

>81 JayneCM: He mentions Songlines several times in this book and I'll look for it.
>82 cindydavid4: Not positive, but I think this is on my shelves. He has a lot of fans here!

And my second announcement is:


The Full Body Chills podcast bought a story from me! I published it on Autumn Lives Here in June for my paid subscribers under the title "Going Back As Far As Anyone Remembers". It's been retitled "Sitting Up with Granny" and should be on FBC in the upcoming season.

>85 mstrust: Exciting news, congrats!

Thanks! Now I get to wait...

45. Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.

The first in the series, this introduces Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter specialist for the Miami police and a serial killer who hunts down other serial killers. While his co-workers are tracking down a killer who dismembers and packages the body parts like presents, Dexter is studying the methods of his fellow murderer with admiration, while also hoping he can solve the case on his own and take the killer out by his own method. 4 stars

46. Vinyl Cafe Turns the Page by Stuart McLean.
I believe this was the last collection of Vinyl Cafe stories from McLean.
The Vinyl Cafe features the family of Dave, Morley, Stephanie, Sam and best friend Murphy, all facing some aspect of getting older. Dave and his friends decide to chip in for a neighborhood heart defibrillator, and he loses a friend. Morley manipulates her elderly mother into moving in, which is exhausting for both of them. Sam gets a job in a gourmet store and finds a mentor in the owner, and Murphy decides he needs to learn how to sign his name and starts a business. All the stories have the humorous tone that made the Vinyl Cafe so popular, but this collection often has a sense of nostalgia, of having the characters looking back.
If you enjoy Bill Bryson, you'd probably like The Vinyl Cafe books. 4 stars

47. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell.

A novella-length look at the most common types of people who spend time in Bythell's Wigtown second hand bookshops. Often a diatribe about people who come in to lecture the bookseller on their weird pet interest, to consult maps and leave, park their children and leave, and many other ways of being annoying, which makes this a fun read. 4 stars

New, free post at Autumn Lives Here! Upcoming book releases, the true crime story of a strange name in Oklahoma, and humans vs. nature movies. And a few announcements.

My "let's pretend it isn't 108F" purchases this weekend: a black jack o' lantern coffee mug, a coffee traveler in Autumn colors with a fox on it, a variety 12pk case of Elysian pumpkin beers (heeeee!). We also dropped in Krispy Kreme, which we haven't done since last Autumn, and I got a couple of their Fall flavors, the maple pecan and pumpkin spice glazed. Didn't eat all of either, just wasn't worth it.

It's coming.

My Autumn thread is up in the 75 Challenge, come see!
https://www.librarything.com/topic/353429

48. Bedside Manor by Jack Townsend.

Jack and his best friend Jerry go on a road trip to take Jack's mind off his problems. Their car breaks down on a lonely road that has no cell reception, but luckily there's a big, spooky mansion in sight. They ask for a phone, but with a storm approaching, it will be a long wait for a tow truck. They're offered a room, dry clothes and a strong invitation to join the murder mystery party downstairs. Jack feels something off about the manor and the people who have gathered for the game, but things are much worse than he could have guessed.
Part horror, part sci-fi, part Clue, this fun mystery is all unpredictable twists, you never know where it's going next. If you've read Townsend's Tales from the Gas Station, this is station attendant Jack's horrible vacation.
4.5

49. Mothered by Zoje Stage.

Grace and her mother Jackie have had a distant relationship for decades, both literally and emotionally. Grace became a hairstylist and remained in Pittsburgh, while Jackie took off for Florida and ended up outliving two husbands. Grace is a new homeowner when the pandemic hits, leaving her out of a job and with a mortgage, which is when Jackie calls and suggests she become Grace's roommate to relieve some of the financial burden. Eventually, Grace agrees to let her mother move in, knowing it would last for only so long.
Jackie's arrival brings out their old family dynamics. Jackie likes being waited on, but it turns out that she wasn't the meanest in the family. Grace had once been a twin, and her nightmares of those years are intense, leading to sleepless nights that become unbearable when the two women are stuck together in the small house. 4.5

50. American Vampire by Scott Snyder, Stephen King and Rafael Albuqurque.

This contained the first five issues of the comic series. There are two separate stories here that intersect in the beginning and end. Snyder wrote the storyline that follows a movie extra in 1925 Hollywood as she and her best friend hope for stardom. When Pearl is plucked out of the group and given a scene with a famous leading man, she thinks this is her big break, especially when he invites her to the director's party.
King wrote the storyline of Skinner Sweet, a vampire in the Old West who is destroying every man who tries to hunt him.
Both stories create new vampire "rules", and it's an exciting series.
3.5

Slot Machine Fever Dreams by Chris Bohjalian.
This is a 39 page story in Kindle's "Obsessions" collection. A man who has been winning big at a Vegas casino takes a break and goes to the bar. He strikes up a conversation with the bartender, a woman covered in tattoos of Emily Dickenson quotes. They leave together when her shift is over. He gets a room in the hotel and they go up, but the man isn't the restaurant manager he says he is, and she has a more dangerous history too.

>1 mstrust: Your opening graphic is appropriate. I've just been reading that your area is breaking temperature records.

>95 mstrust: "but luckily there's a big, spooky mansion in sight." I love your wording.

We're certainly having a warm September so far. I think today is 102. That hasn't stopped me from my Autumn foods though ;-D
I love your wording. Thank you very much!

A free Autumn Lives Here is up. This week we meet the owner of Ben's Sugar Shack in New Hampshire, and look at the career of Universal monster makeup artist Jack Pierce, the guy who turned Karloff into Frankenstein and Chaney into The Wolfman.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

51. The Walking Dead Psychology by Travis Langley.

A book of essays that cover subjects such as survivor guilt, the effects of long-term fear and stress, what turns normal people into sociopaths, and how we perceive our own role in a group. Most of the essays are contributed by mental health professionals, professors, and one forensic examiner, so while the psychiatric insights are solid and in many cases could apply to real life situations, the traumatized characters of The Walking Dead are the ones being examined. There's a particularly good essay about season two bad guy Shane.
I'd read another Walker psychology book years ago and found it pretty dry. If you're interested in the subject, which covers trauma and survival, this is a good choice. The essays are pretty riveting. 4 stars, S.S. 1.5

52. 30 Days of Night 3: Run, Alice, Run by Steve Niles

Alice and Hendrik are cornered in the FBI building by Eben and his vampires. All the agents have either been killed or turned and have joined Eben's army, helping him get closer to Alice. This is all Eben is interested in because Alice is the cop who killed Eben's wife, Stella.
Vampires and lots of gore, though in some panels I couldn't tell what was happening. 3.5

53. The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

Fiona is a writer of fluff magazine pieces, the kind that don't take much effort, and she's been fine with that even though her career is a disappointment to her famous father, an iconic writer and photographer. Fiona and her dad's lives were derailed twenty years before when Fiona's older sister was found dead on the grounds of isolated Idlewild Hall, an abandoned girl's school that has the reputation for being haunted.
Suddenly, the crumbling school has a new owner who plans on renovating and reopening the school, and this is what gets Fiona to the place her sister was dumped. She begins investigating the new owners, which leads to an investigation into multiple other deaths connected with the school, including the source of the rumored school ghost.
A spooky Victorian school, angry teens, and an investigative reporter, all set in shiveringly cold Vermont. Recommended.
4.5

>104 mstrust: I also really liked this one!

>104 mstrust: I have really like the other two books that I have read by Simone St. James and I am looking forward to this one!

>104 mstrust: Taking a BB for this one

54. Fifth-Grade Zombies by R.L. Stine.

Todd's parents have gone away on a year long business trip, sending him from Queens to cousins in Wisconsin. Todd is a twelve year-old who doesn't complain, in fact, he's looking forward to living with his cousins Mila and Skipper and his aunt and uncle. But it doesn't take long before Todd is catching on to his new family's strange behavior when it comes to the weird sounds coming from their cornfield, or that everyone in his new school must be in their classrooms before the gray bus pulls up to let the last load of kids out.
The Slappyworld books are the newer series of Goosebumps, written for the current generation. This 2021 book is faster paced, a little more graphic with gore, and the kids are smarter. But you still get Stine's trademark "noooo!"
3.5

>105 LibraryCin: She quickly became one of my favorite writers!

>106 DeltaQueen50: This was my second from her, and I have The Book of Cold Cases on the shelf too! Really, how could anyone not love The Sun Down Motel?

>107 lowelibrary: I think you'll like it!

>109 mstrust: I would agree with that. She and Darcy Coates are currently favourite horror writers for me. And that also happened quickly!

I still haven't read anything by Coates!

>104 mstrust: The title looked familiar so I checked and yes, I show it as read but I can remember very little about it. Time to revisit. Thanks for the BB.

Happy to get ya!

This week at Autumn Lives Here, we delve into the Walker Stalker convention scandal. What happened when 70,000 Walking Dead fans dropped to 25,000? Financial chaos.
Also, we celebrate Stephen King's birthday. Here he is, just wondering why you haven't subscribed yet.

https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

55. The Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book by Jerry Seinfeld.

I love this Netflix series that has Seinfeld taking classic cars to pick up comedians and go get coffee. They talk, crack jokes, get something to eat, and drink coffee. They drive around, see the streets and often say hello to people who are staring at them.
This coffee table sized book has excerpts from these talks put into chapters about childhood or discussing other comedians. If you've watched the show, you've heard these discussions. The surprise in this book was Seinfeld's taking the reader through the steps of how the show was made. Since getting coffee was always in the plan, he had a meeting with Starbuck's CEO to pitch them being the sponsor, having the show be filmed in a Starbuck's. The CEO couldn't grasp the concept and passed, which is why Lavazza is in every episode. 3.5

This is a free week of Autumn Lives Here. Come for the haunted house books, the maple makers at Sugar Oak Farms, and meet The Pied Piper of Tucson, a really terrible guy.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

56. Blood & Ivy by Paul Collins.

A true story of murder at Harvard.
In 1849, a wealthy doctor, Dr. Parkman, went missing while on his rounds around Boston to collect on money owed him. He had a large amount of cash on him and was a money lender, which is the relationship he had to a Harvard chemistry professor named Dr. Webster, who owed Dr. Parkman a tremendous amount. When a clever janitor at the school grew suspicious about Dr. Webster, he secretly searched the professor's rooms and revealed a murder.
The reader meets the players and is taken through the extensive search for the well-known Dr. Parkman. The steps to discovery and the trial that ensued are covered, with a surprising amount of actual dialogue from the people who investigated and from the murderer.
4 stars

57. The Visitors by Catherine Burns.

Marion and her brother John live together in their childhood home, in a seaside tourist town in Northern England. Their parents died decades ago, but stupid, dependent Marion never left home, never experienced life, and is now regretting it. John had been a teacher but was fired and came home with his reputation ruined.
He's an angry, manipulative man who Marion both loves and fears, just as she feared everyone in her family. She is also frightened every time she hears those screams that come from the cellar, where John spends his time teaching math and science to the Eastern European women he tricks into coming to their house.
This story is told by Marion in her own memories and viewpoint, of her childhood with her cold parents who preferred their intelligent, deviant son over spineless Marion, and her shame over having nothing to love but stuffed animals. Marion takes the reader from pity to horror, and we see that she's more like her brother than she will admit. Highly recommended.
5 stars

>118 mstrust: I liked this one, but I think it would have been scarier if the back of the book hadn't given away the secret before the book is even opened.

That's true, the blurbs gave away too much. The book was really well written, so blame the publishers.

>120 mstrust: Oh, I do. I think that creating a buzz for a debut novel, especially one that allows the suspense to slowly build, is a hard task, but they took the easy way out. I'm looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

Me too.

Today's Autumn Lives Here has haunted house movies, a Japanese urban legend, and a forgotten cocktail for Fall. We're in October, time to step up your creepiness.
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

It Waits in the Woods by Josh Malerman.

One of the Creature Feature short stories available on Kindle. This is the story of eighteen year-old Brenda, who has spent the past three years being blamed by her parents for her younger sister's disappearance. Amanda took some beers and walked into a nearby forest expecting to meet up with a friend, and nobody has seen her since. Brenda enters the forest alone with her camera equipment, looking for anything, even the Opso, a mythical local legend.



Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix.
Tess gets out of bed in the dark, something Marcus never, ever does because when he was a child his father told him that's how the Ankle Snatcher got you. He told Marcus that the Ankle Snatcher had killed his mother, a lie, because the father was prosecuted for the murder.
This has some scares, I'd say it's 1.5 Severed Fingers.

>124 mstrust: I downloaded the Joe Hill story The Pram from the Creature Features. Hoping to get it read this month.

I have that one too and I'm looking forward to it! Should be quite creepy.

It's a free week at Autumn Lives Here. I've got blood. maple syrup and Tim Curry
https://jennifermorrow.substack.com/

58. Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases by Paul Holes.

While most of the book is about Holes' career, his involvement in catching serial killers, rapists, and his work on the Golden State Killer case, he also includes his personal life here and discusses the toll his work took on his relationships.
If you have an interest in true crime, you know Holes has become an in-demand speaker and podcaster with an amazing memory for facts. Here he goes over his methods of processing a crime scene with an attention to detail and overlooked clues.
5

I'll lump these together and count them as one:


59. The Pram by Joe Hill.

Willy and Marianne move to an old farmhouse in a small town in Maine after experiencing a miscarriage. They need to get away from everything that reminds them of their misery, so when the owner of the general store provides Willy with a dirty old pram to carry his purchases home in, Willy knows he has to hide it from Marianne. But from the first walk through the forest with the pram, Willy feels the presence of something wonderful, and he will protect it, even from his wife.
A tale of marital strife that is also a 'fish out of water' story and then folk horror.
S.S.: 2.5


Census by Marc Bernadin

A broke guy applies for a mysterious job that promises good pay and flexible hours. Interviewed by the boss, he's told he'll be a census taker. The pay is surprisingly high and he shakes on it. On his first day, he's sent to a Brooklyn address and discovers that he's been sent to get answers from three succubi, and that his job is to keep tabs on the non-human population of NYC.
A bit predictable comic that may get better.
S.S.: 1

60. The Slither Sisters by Charles Gilman.

The second book in the Lovecraft Middle School series, this sees newcomer Robert and his friends Glenn and ghost Karina still fighting the monsters who plague their school. Now, the bodies of the popular Price twins have been taken over by the monsters. If Sarah Price wins the student body president election, they'll be able to bring over enough monsters to decimate the school. 4

I read In Bloom the short horror by Paul Tremblay offered in Kindle.
A journalist interviews an older man, who remembers a day when he was a boy and his father took him to a ball game played by local teams. The boy didn't care for baseball and couldn't take the sun, so he went to sit in the shade of the playground, to his father's disdain. Then, some hungry moss creature came out of the nearby pond, resulting in the death of the father.
The story was a "meh" for me.

>131 mstrust: It doesn't sound like a "meh" story, but I'll take your word for it.